Lemon and Poppy Seed Muffins

Since we have been in New Zealand, we have found that Matt actually likes bagels, which is a new thing. He also likes cream cheese too now, but that is besides the point. So his favorite type of bagel is poppy seed, which is how this relates to this post. I was looking through the recipe book, and I saw a recipe for poppy seed muffins, and I thought that Matt might really like them, so I decided to try it.

I have to start out though by telling you that I am very afraid to use lemon in my recipes, because one Valentine's Day, oh so very long ago, Matt and I tried to make a pasta dish that called for lemon, and we put way too much lemon in the recipe, and it ruined the meal. So I proceed with caution now anytime a recipe calls for it.

So this recipe has flour, baking powder, caster sugar, poppy seeds, butter, 1 egg, milk, and of course, lemon rind and juice of one lemon in it. The recipe was quite simple to make, but again, I was most definitely nervous about the lemon juice part. It also wanted the rind, which meant that I needed a zester. Just one more thing that I dont have in my tiny kitchen. So, I did find a lie-down cheese grater/zester combo, and on top of that, I found it for 3NZD, so I was pretty happy. By the way, still dont have a hand mixer, but I will soon Im sure. Those, unlike the grater, are expensive. Hopefully Ill be able to find one cheap. But anyway, back to the recipe.

I think my favorite part of this recipe was the poppy seeds, because it said to toast them over medium heat for less than a minute, shaking the frying pan so they dont burn. I felt like a real chef doing that, and it was fun. :) So overall, the mixture was sticky, but super easy to make, and best of all of course, was that Matt really liked them. Unfortunately though, I left them out on a plate overnight, because my Tupperware dishes were being used by my Hummingbird Cake and Chocolate Chip Cookies, so they had to stay out, and they went bad pretty quick, but not too soon. We did get to enjoy a lot of them.

So speaking of Valentine's Day, it is coming up soon! Im very excited about that, and I want to make a cake (also in the book) that is a heart, and make some heart shaped cookies, but of course, I dont have a heart shaped cake pan or heart cookie cutters... Not sure what I am going to do about those, but Im still excited about it. So keep checking in! But for now, the beautiful picture Matty took of the muffins before they went bad.